2.27 Duffy and writing as trauma

We began class with a review of what we are doing in this class - and where we are going.

Discussion on 2.27 was about narrative methods for addressing trauma.  We "appropriated" Duffy's approach and turned it into narrative approaches for addressing some of the blocked, emotionally difficult, or otherwise baffling relationships that come between writers and the page.  We spent most of the class working through the definitions of trauma as they would connect to writing, and writing into (discovering and defining)  the kinds of issues that constitute trauma as it connects to and presents itself in and through writing. My notes (the points I picked out as central to Duffy's line of reasoning) are posted to the right. 

Re-stating the most important of the most important points, she suggests that:

While the "colloquial" /everyday construction of trauma equates it with natural disasters and physical/sexual abuse, the features that constitute these understandings suggest a definition where

"most traumas occur in the context of interpersonal relationships, which involve boundary violations, loss of autonomous action, and loss of self-regulation" (272)

Duffy also pointed out that persistent (strucutrual) violations of relationships, boundaries and self-regulation can be deeply traumatizing.  Because of its nature - its creation of a self that is both vulnerable to "appropriation" and outside the protection of the self that created it - writing a particularly likely vehicle for trauma.  Its deep associations with self, its inherently public nature, and the fact that its "governed" by an institution (school) which (generally) makes invisible its personal, identity-building nature.

We explored the dimensions of trauma as they connect to writing through a series of writing prompts which led to both a list of particular incidents from which we abstracted some general characteristics.

Characteristics of traumas associated with writingViolation of boundary/privacy issuesAppropriation of meaning (writing represented as meaning "against" a meaning chosen by the self)Writing as incriminating (evidence against the self)Writing as a punishment (no ownership – using writing as a weapon against the self)Misrepresentations of self/ exposure of self (can connect to misreading audience)Misreading audience (fears associated with rejection/misunderstanding => appropriation of meaning)

While this list is not exhaustive, it begins to indicate some of the issues writers bear with them as they enter college writing classes.  In general, school writing classes do not provide writers either the opportunity to share the fact that the peri mundane violations of self.

Narrative approaches to addressing traumaIn fact, we did not do justice to the method posed by Duffy.  The points are listed below.

1) establish emotional resonance = writers  step into a perspective that "meanings of a person's life are not fixed even when the events that engendered those meanings occurred in the past"

2) find a position of safety from which to view the meanings and explore whether there are other meanings available to the writer which might be helpful

3) begin a conversation with one's body

4) incorporate the experience and meaning of trauma into "language" resources (autobiography)

5) narrate the story of discovering/re-seeing/retelling traumatic events (story of coping and survival)

6) access "wisdom" that writer might want to share

Although we worked through some private, reflective practices for laying the groundwork to identify events and to begin to narrate them (steps 1-4), we did not develop what is really the point of her article.  She enjoins us to notice that in the re-exploration of material, there are many possible stories, including stories the look forward as well as stories that look back. As Duffy points out, the traumatized body does not distinguish the present (and future) from the past.  In practice, the past is an instance that, while it may have set up or "frozen" the mind into a particular pattern, is not unalterable, and that "re-telling" the meanings, or seeing differently (choosing different parts of the experience as significant) can alter future experiences that are "triggered" by a traumatic past.

The conscious realization that a given response to a writing context may be "old baggage" from past experiences that, once they are realized and reflected on, may be understood as NOT PRESENT. 

The work of re-seeing and re-telling - is the "handwaving" section of this essay (in that it is not as developed as it might have been) = but we can go back to the idea of points of entry from Shotter, and forward to the methods in Chamberlain = as ways to take apart internalized stories that keep us from our writing.  The valuable points to take from this reading are that:

• there are very likely many real traumas associated with writing - especially school writing
• these traumas can affect student engagement with writing
• acknowledging that these traumas are pervasive is (should be) and important concern of writing instruction 
• they (writing traumas) can be worked on (addressed) through the exploration of language structures

For next week:

Read Chamberlain, 106; and Chandler, Chapter 1 ( posted to the right)